Representatives from over a good century of countries are meeting in Dublin this week in an effort to secure a cluster munition ban. This is not the first such meeting. Another took place earlier this year in New Zealand with the same goal. This time, like last time, the biggest purveyors of cluster munitions -- the United States, Russia, and China -- are not in attendance. Neither are cluster munition fans Israel, Pakistan, and India. Our quote is particularly stellar:
The US has said that it favours non-binding guidelines on the use of the weapon.
I really, really want someone from the current administration to step up and ask an analyst at DIA to do a cost-benefit analysis on cluster munitions. What problems do they solve that a standard laser-guided munition does not? As I discussed in an earlier post, there is extensive evidence of the massive civilian collateral damage caused by cluster munitions, often years and years after the conflict, but there is a strict paucity of countervailing evidence support the weak claim that cluster munitions actually reduce collateral damage by being "less destructive" at the moment of use.
Mark Garlasco, a campaigner for New-York based Human Rights Watch spoke to Al Jazeera from Dublin.
Garlasco said: "I have seen cluster munitions used across the world... in Lebanon... in Iraq. These are the types of weapons that should never be used. There is no way to use these weapons in a legal manner.
You can read more about the ban effort at the Cluster Munition Coalition website. You can read about Israel violating our terms of use agreement on cluster munitions we sold to them during the 2006 summer war in Lebanon in this earlier post.